


Ligaya

by tropicalgothic



Category: Naruto
Genre: And small mentions of bb Temari and bb Kankuro, Minor Character Death, Not so much graphic depictions of violence as much as, SasoriMiniBang2020, so like beware, tw ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27460609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tropicalgothic/pseuds/tropicalgothic
Summary: To commit regicide is to kill the Kazekage. To commit regicide is treason. It is grounds for an execution. Sasori could see in front of him a death by a thousand cuts-- all by his hand. When Sasori walks home after the killing, he expects them to figure it out.
Relationships: Karura/Rasa/Sasori (Naruto)
Kudos: 11
Collections: Sasori Mini Bang





	Ligaya

Sasori did not will himself to walk home— he could not go home. But he continued walking, as if by someone else’s strings. One foot in front of the other; his eyes vaguely focused on the dirt road before him. 

His arms were not his. His body was not his. His house, this home that he found himself in front of, was not his. 

He could not bring himself to knock on their door. He should just go— stop playing house and pretending that he belonged here. That anything would ever be alright after he—

“Sasori?”

Yes, that was his name. _Is that blood yours?_ He could not remember knocking. _Are you hurt?_ But he must have— else, why would she open the door. _Sasori? Are you hurt? Say something—_

His gaze finally met hers. Karura’s voice sounded like an echo from a temple he wasn’t allowed in. Sasori shook his head. _It’s not mine. But it is on me._ He’s not sure if he actually said those words.

“Come with me,” she sounded clearer now, like they were finally in the same plane. The door closed. Will she know? “I have some bandages and clean gloves in the bathroom.” 

The scene plays like stills in a movie— there’s running water. A hose. Bright fluorescent lights flickering on. Blood flowing down the sluice. A body on the slab— gurgling and still half alive. Still determined to—

“Do you want me to call Rasa?”

“No.” The words leave him faster than he could catch it. Sasori blinked— they were in the bathroom. There was no body; he was not in the basement. His flack jacket was on the floor. Karura was trying to get his shirt off— feeling for spots that were more drenched with blood than the rest. But his jacket had more stains than his shirt did, and her frantic pace slowed down. The drumming of his heart did not. “Please don’t call Rasa.”

Will she know? She has to know— the blood was on his clothes. Sasori searched her eyes for judgement, for anger, for hate, and found only worry.

Karura finally got the shirt off him. 

“Where did you get this?” Her hand hovered over a bright red bruise that covered half his upper chest, afraid to touch it and cause pain. It’s okay. He didn’t feel anything. The metal table that launched at him didn’t kill him.

Karura looked around, searching for wounds, for bleeding, for parts of him she could put back together. Her hands finally rested on his elbows, lifting his arms up, and sliding forward to his hands. They trembled in her steady ones.

“Can you talk right now?” She almost whispered it. Like saying it any louder would hurt a bruise he couldn’t feel. “If you can’t it’s okay— let me clean you up.”

Karura turned on the shower in the tub. They only ever used that tub twice. Rasa didn’t like unnecessary expenses.

“I’m alright. I can wash myself—“

The hiss of the water from the shower head. From a hose. Bright fluorescent lights flickering on. Blood flowing down the sluice. A body on the slab— gurgling and still half alive. A hand around his neck. _Why won’t you die?_ The thud of the body slipping on the water. _Why won’t you die?!_ The splash of blood on his jacket.

Sasori turned off the shower, shaking.

He felt like he stood there for hours before Karura gently moved him into the tub, and turned on the faucet instead. The water lapped at his feet, while Karura cleaned the blood off his face with a wet towel. 

Sasori moved in and out of himself in those moments that were both seconds and hours long. He knew Karura was saying something as she cleaned him up and the water reached his ankles. He knew that he liked the sound of her voice. That he liked the touch of the her hand on his hair, smoothing out the dried bits of— 

_He was only starting to become uncoordinated now. Now. It should have been minutes ago. He should have stopped breathing by now— why— what— he calculated the dose; took into account the weight; the wine— he thought of the wine too—— shit, shit, shi—_

“—stay at home with us tomorrow. It’s a Sunday. I’ll help you bring things from your workshop if you’d like---“

He held her arm then, frozen before the towel could touch him. The water was at his stomach. She’d smell it if she came in, even if it was in the basement. The chemicals. The blood.

Sasori’s eyes met hers. He should just go— stop playing house and pretending that he belonged here. That anything would ever be alright after he— 

_I killed him._ The confession was at the tip of his tongue. _I poisoned him. I cut his chest, and watched the blood form on the wound. I strangled him and cracked his skull open when he tried to escape. I killed the Kazekage. I killed Rasa’s brother— and you will hate me, and you will curse me… and you will leave me…_

Her other hand brushed his hair. She laid a kiss on his forehead. “It’s alright,” she whispered, not knowing. She didn’t know. “I’m here.” And the confession dissipated from his lips.

Sasori lay his head where he could reach her, and curled up to side of the bathtub. His body was not his. The tears were not his.

x.X.x

Sasori sat, wide awake at 2 in the morning, on the chair of Karura’s dresser. He’s only here because Rasa snored in his sleep, Karura was clingy (he should get her a life sized pillow one of these days), and Kankuro wiggled into his spot between the two in the middle of the night.

Definitely not because he couldn’t sleep.

“Definitely not because you’re hallucinating,” an arm wrapped around Sasori’s shoulder. “That only comes from certain poisons, and not as an acute coping mechanism for a murder you’re not sure you wanted to commit.” He sat beside Sasori in his white and green ceremonial robes. Perfectly clean. Not a drop of blood. The Sandaime Kazekage smiled, and blood dripped from the edge of his lips.

Sasori said nothing. Did nothing. Because Ryozen was dead. Very dead. His skin and tissues were soaking in the chemicals— and Sasori distinctly remembered smashing his skull on the floor. The back of his head shouldn’t be that clean.

“That’s fine,” Ryozen took his arm away and adjusted his position, sitting in mid air. “We’ve got—— what, at least a week? I think a week has been the longest I’ve ever disappeared because of the war. I imagine my brother would start looking for me after that.”

_Shut up._

“At most— maybe forever? You’re always going on about that, aren’t you? Or are you all talk and not actually willing to drag your baggage through all of eternity?”

“Shut up,” Sasori hissed at the empty space beside him.

“No-no,” came a small voice at his other side.

“You actually let a two year old sneak up on you?” Ryozen laughed, “Nah, I’m gonna give Rasa three or five days before he figures everything out— considering how sloppy you’re getting.”

Little Temari slapped her doll, the carved figure of Princess Iron fan, on Sasori’s knee to get his attention. “Uppity,” she raised both arms up. 

Sasori finally turned towards her. “We can’t play right now.” He picked her up, and headed back to the room she shared with Kankuro. Both their sheets were crumpled and on the floor. Temari kicked her legs to get down, and giggled when she landed on the floor. She gave him all manner of gifts while he folded their blankets properly— the book she insisted Karura read to her every night, a stuffed toy, another stuffed toy, Kankuro’s pillow, a clean diaper.

“She probably wants you to flip through the book with her,” Ryozen so helpfully suggested. “Karura tells a different story every time, depending on what Temari points to in the pictures. But she really likes the deep goblin voice.”

“Come on, Temari, back to bed.” Sasori put the wiggling child on the bed, only to have her stand back up and attempt to get down.

“You’ll have to do that in my stead now,” Ryozen was leaning against the door frame. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that my niece is never going to miss me.”

Sasori tucked one side of the bed, but Temari has already wiggled out of the other.

“The rest of Suna though— I don’t think they’ll be fine losing their Kazekage. And we’re in the middle of a war. Worst timing, Sasori. We’ve got people trying to invade the desert— suicide for outsiders, if you ask me. But we have loans. And we’ve got unemployment—“

“Temari, please come back.”

“No-no,” she tried to kick him when he picked her up again.

“—Rasa would have to pick that up, wouldn’t he? I mean he’s the last of us siblings and the next in line since I don’t have kids.”

“Temari, please. Just—“

“Oof, poor Karura. She’ll have to deal with three kids, and an over worked husband. I’d say she’d have one less husband too but then again, you haven’t even answered them when—“

“No!” Temari kicked him in the face.

“I said quiet!” Sasori laid a hand over Temari’s head, let a pulse of chakra flow, and she promptly fell into a deep slumber.

Sasori kept his head down as he tucked the blanket properly, and smoothed the wrinkles out. He could see the Kazekage robes, dripping red, from the corner of his eye. He could feel Ryozen’s smirk. He could—

“Sasori?”

“Fuck—— shit, sorry, Rasa,” he must heard him shout at Temari, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Rasa peaked behind Sasori and noted Temari fast asleep in her bed. “I heard her enter the room earlier. Is she alright?”

Sasori nodded, not meeting Rasa’s gaze. “Just asleep. She won’t remember when she wakes up.”

“Of course not,” Rasa shrugged and took a sip from his glass of water, “she’s two.”

Sasori rolled his eyes. Rasa laughed. Sasori almost smiled. 

“Come back to bed, Sasori.”

“I can’t— I— I have to go somewhere.” Anywhere. Preferably some place where the world won’t find him; where loneliness won’t find him; where the leaving won’t get to him; where the softness he’ll never get anymore won’t taunt him with a cruel smile and a bloody white and green ceremonial robe.

“Wherever you’re going,” Rasa put a hand on the small of his back and guided him through the hallway. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

“It’s already morning.”

“No. No, it doesn’t count as morning until I have my coffee.”

Sasori didn’t move from his spot, and Rasa’s hand slid away from his back.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” his face wrinkled into an ugly grimace, and if he didn’t straighten out everything is going to—— _I just want to pull memories and thoughts and things out of my head. I want to carve myself hollow of all these emotions. Of dreams I’ll never have— but have always entertained. ‘Cuz you both have set it on a silver platter for a hungry shinobi that didn’t know the first thing about lo—-_

“What’s going on?” Karura wandered into the hallway, Kankuro asleep in his arms. 

Sasori could feel the venom pooling behind his lips. And if he spat it out now, they would leave him. And he can go to that place only he knew; that place not even the leaving would find. But it didn’t come. What came, instead, was Karura’s hand taking his. “Are you alright, Sasori?”

Sasori shook his head. Wrapped his arms around himself. “No,” he whispered, “I feel pathetic today. All 22 hours left of today.”

She pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Come to bed, love. The world doesn’t need you until the morning.”

“It’s already morning.”

“Four hours, Sasori. Lay in bed with us for four hours— and we’ll keep the thoughts away just long enough for a nap. Does that sound good?”

“I’m not a child, Karura.”

She brushed something wet off his cheek. “No you’re not. But please—“

He thought of the blood running through the sluice. He thought of the body soaking up the chemicals. He thought of the hose— the shower— the water at the tub lapping at his feet. He thought of the future he changed with curare painted on a kunai.

He thought of the first time he met Karura. They were young, and he had been given half a candied apple that tasted sweeter than any cake he’s had since he was five. He thought of the first time he met Rasa, her fiancé at that time— and how one conversation changed the tone of an ill intentioned visit. He thought of the two— and the little one that hasn’t even taken his first breath.

One night and I have doomed us all.

Sasori finally let Rasa bring him back to bed while Karura tucked Kankuro into his. He lay between them— Rasa snoring to his right, Karura singing softly to his left.

There are good things in his life, Sasori reminded himself. He knew this. They existed in the same breath as all the bad things that follow him like a dark shadow, dressed in white and green and dripping red. What he does not know is what it took to say yes to those things. Good things speak to him as if they were an echo from a temple he wasn’t allowed in. He does not know if they hear him.

He wondered how different things would be then.

**Author's Note:**

> Ligaya, the title, is based on the tune Karura was singing when I first wrote it. Literally, it means "Joy". The end of the chorus felt apt for the piece and Karura's thoughts on it, as well as the disjoint Sasori feels.
> 
> _Dahil ang puso ko’y walang pangamba_   
>  _Lahat tayo’y mabubuhay ng tahimik at buong…_   
>  _Ligaya_
> 
> Because I know in my heart  
> We will all live in peace, and in complete  
> joy
> 
> This was originally written as part of another piece, but I think it can stand on its own.


End file.
